1. Field of the Invention
The invention is generally related to GPS receivers, and in particular, to acquisition and tracking of a pseudorandom noise (PN) signal in a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver in a relatively noisy environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Global Positioning System (GPS) Operational Constellation nominally comprises 24 earth-orbiting satellites. Each satellite radiates a spread spectrum, pseudorandom noise (PN) signal indicating the satellite's position and time. A GPS receiver tuned to receive the signals from the satellites can compute the distance to the satellites and calculate the receiver's position, velocity, and time. The receiver calculates the distance to a satellite by multiplying the propagation rate of the satellite's radio signal, i.e., the speed of light, by the time it took the signal to travel from the satellite to the receiver.
Each satellite transmits two carrier signals referred to as L1 and L2. L1 operates at a frequency of 1.57542 GHz and L2 operates at a frequency of 1.22760 GHz. Multiple binary codes induce phase modulation upon the L1 and L2 carrier signals. Each satellite in the GPS Operational Constellation transmits a unique code over the L1 and L2 carrier signals. One of the phase-modulated signals is C/A Code (Coarse Acquisition Code). Presently, 32 codes are defined for the C/A Code. A satellite's C/A Code phase modulates the L1 carrier over a 1.023 MHz bandwidth. The C/A Code is a repeating 1023 bit sequence. At 1023 bits and 1.023 MHz, the C/A Code repeats every millisecond. The C/A Code forms the basis for the Standard Positioning Service (SPS) used by civilians.
Another phase-modulated signal is the P-Code (Precise Code). The P-Code is similar to the C/A Code in that it is a PN sequence which phase modulates a carrier signal. The P-Code modulates both the L1 and the L2 signals at a rate of 10.23 MHz. In an Anti-Spoofing mode, the P-Code is encrypted to produce the Y-Code to restrict access to users with the encryption key. The P-Code forms the basis for the military's Precise Positioning Service (PPS). It will be understood that additional signals, such as M-Code, can be added to existing carriers or to additional carriers.
A GPS receiver preferably functions in a variety of environments. Both friendly and unfriendly environments can include interference. For example, jammers from “unfriendly” sources can intentionally cause interference. Interference can also originate from “friendly” sources, such as radar transmitters and commercial television transmitters. For example, non-linearities in RF power amplifiers can create out-of-band RF signals, which in turn cause RF interference to GPS receivers. In the presence of interference, a GPS receiver can fail to acquire a GPS signal quickly, if at all. This can lead to undesirable errors in navigation, guidance, tracking, etc.
One technique that has been used in radar receivers to filter out interfering signals is space-time adaptive processing (STAP). Disadvantageously, conventional STAP techniques are computationally very complex and typically require the use of a very powerful computer to compute in real time.